Paris Attack 2015: Named Terrorists All European Nationals, Not Syrian Refugees

Paris Attack 2015: Named Terrorists All European Nationals, Not Syrian Refugees

While several of the assailants had been to Syria, the majority have been identified as French or Belgian nationals. The Independent published Wednesday a list of the attackers with their nationalities. None of them was a refugee from Syria.

Yet there have been Islamic terrorists of purely European ancestry, who were converted to Islam. And changed their names. While this terrorism is indeed mostly a religious-cultural phenomenon, peculiar to Middle East traditions, it also has ideological & emotional components, which appeal to those outside the Arab world.

Frankly I think a lot of the failure of the West to fight this plague is due to inadequately expressing & practicing our values. We have a cynical malaise about our beliefs, especially in Europe, and so it should be no surprise when dedicated true believers, even in something so evil as Islamic radicalism, are able to recruit among us and strike us at will.

Certainly I recognize the need for a forceful armed response. My military training tells me this. But that just treats the symptom, and does not eradicate the underlying cause. Allowing the evil to resurface again & again.

The way you fight an ideology is with a more attractive counter-ideology. The West has yet to devise one, or at least to promote it. The same way Islamic radicals are promoting their own beliefs, in every corner of the world.

I don't understand why people haven't figured out how useless labels really are when it comes to this stuff. Yes, tornados come from clouds. But seeing a cloud doesn't mean you're going to hit by a tornado. Yet when we look at people we still cling to things like skin color and origin and use those as predictors of outcome. It's superstition at best. And we are actually less safe thinking that way because we ostracize, isolate and often offend people who could help us.

As thinking humans, we should be WAAAAY more afraid of people texting behind the wheel or driving while drunk than we should of a terrorist attack from a middle easterner. And we should also understand that although terrorist attacks are very scary, we should make friends with people in all areas so that they can HELP us identify and catch the bad guys. In EVERY one of the cases where we've captured the terrorists or prevented an act it has been 110% based on leads, involvement and even the sacrifice of people of middle eastern descent.

^ If you've seen green space aliens abduct your family into their spacecraft you would do well to run in the other direction the next time you saw an alien spacecraft rather than stick around to see if the occupants are a different shade of green or if they will help you search the universe. Chances are they won't treat you any differently. And I doubt you would be willing to stick around to prove your hunch wrong.

He "whoever he was" crossed with a fake Syrian passport. It didnt set any alarms off.

Of course refugees aren't likely to be terrorist.

Its just terrorist will POSE AS REFUGEES. They did and were successful and the guys guts are strewn all over Paris.

The only reason that Syrian passport was allowed passage through Turkey and Greece because it was entering through the refugee route. And he posed as a refugee.

The Syrian government is destroyed, databases dont exist. So its very easy to create an identity and fake things. The only vetting done is against the outside databases. If the "terrorist" wants to hitch a ride on a refugee status it would be easy provided his or picture/fingerprints are not in any database.

Being cautious shouldnt be equated with racism or being a islamaphobe. I see this as a convenient straw man distraction from the bigger topic of the utter failure of US foreign policy.

10,000 refugees is a sliver of the Syrians that died because of Obama's dithering of Aug 2013. He supported the ouster of Assad, but let down the Syrian people when he promised not to allow chemical weapons to be used in the fight.

Why dont you talk about that? More people died in the Syrian civil ware then Assad ever had issue with, and for what? 250,000 dead.

You have similar but less publicized issues in Libya and Egypt and Yemen. And of course in Libya, this lead to the Benghazi massacre.

woodfordr saidI don't understand why people haven't figured out how useless labels really are when it comes to this stuff. Yes, tornados come from clouds. But seeing a cloud doesn't mean you're going to hit by a tornado. Yet when we look at people we still cling to things like skin color and origin and use those as predictors of outcome. It's superstition at best. And we are actually less safe thinking that way because we ostracize, isolate and often offend people who could help us.

As thinking humans, we should be WAAAAY more afraid of people texting behind the wheel or driving while drunk than we should of a terrorist attack from a middle easterner. And we should also understand that although terrorist attacks are very scary, we should make friends with people in all areas so that they can HELP us identify and catch the bad guys. In EVERY one of the cases where we've captured the terrorists or prevented an act it has been 110% based on leads, involvement and even the sacrifice of people of middle eastern descent.

But, you see, you're being rational.

The number of people killed is less important than how they are killed. The 35K people killed annually in road accidents is much less serious than the 3,000 killed at 9/11 because those killed at 9/11 are more dead than the 35K killed in road accidents.

Of course we are several times more likely to be killed driving to the airport than we are when actually in the airplane, but we search passengers and luggage because we are more dead if we are killed in a plane crash.

Being killed by a terrorist coming here as a refugee is more serious than being killed as the result of a medical mistake because we are more dead if killed by a terrorist refugee.

woodfordr saidI don't understand why people haven't figured out how useless labels really are when it comes to this stuff. Yes, tornados come from clouds. But seeing a cloud doesn't mean you're going to hit by a tornado. Yet when we look at people we still cling to things like skin color and origin and use those as predictors of outcome. It's superstition at best. And we are actually less safe thinking that way because we ostracize, isolate and often offend people who could help us.

As thinking humans, we should be WAAAAY more afraid of people texting behind the wheel or driving while drunk than we should of a terrorist attack from a middle easterner. And we should also understand that although terrorist attacks are very scary, we should make friends with people in all areas so that they can HELP us identify and catch the bad guys. In EVERY one of the cases where we've captured the terrorists or prevented an act it has been 110% based on leads, involvement and even the sacrifice of people of middle eastern descent.

But, you see, you're being rational.

The number of people killed is less important than how they are killed. The 35K people killed annually in road accidents is much less serious than the 3,000 killed at 9/11 because those killed at 9/11 are more dead than the 35K killed in road accidents.

Of course we are several times more likely to be killed driving to the airport than we are when actually in the airplane, but we search passengers and luggage because we are more dead if we are killed in a plane crash.

Being killed by a terrorist coming here as a refugee is more serious than being killed as the result of a medical mistake because we are more dead if killed by a terrorist refugee.

throw everything and the kitchen sink at it.

Medical errors , car accidents are unlikely to increase. More likely to be the same.What evidence is there that islamic extremist terrorism is to decrease in the recent future?Humans see patterns, this pattern appears to be an upcoming danger.

Why is Josh Ernest the PR firm for World Islam? Seems Ironic because with exception to the most liberal progressive Muslims, Islam the world over subjugates women, is anti gay and intolerant of diversity.

As Saudi Arabia faces mounting criticism for refusing to take in any of the millions of Syrians fleeing conflict in their homeland, it was revealed this weekend that the country has over 100,000 empty, air-conditioned tents that could house up to 3 million refugees.

The tents, located roughly 2,150 miles from Syria in the city of Mina, are only used a few days a year to house pilgrims on their way to Mecca for the hajj, the news station TeleSUR reported.

"And it makes zero sense to travel thousands of miles when a safe haven can easily be made in the region. "

What fantasyland of instant statecraft do you live in? Do you understand that the entire country and much of the territory of it's immediate neighbors is torn apart by civil war, that there is no functioning law, no functioning economy, no 'safe haven' to carve out of a living hell that won't be anything more than a bunch of tents of hungry, hopeless, vulnerable people?

Sure, do what you can to protect the borders, but we live in a global community now. If you want to stop terrorism, figure out how to stop making failed states via questionable interventions, or is it just a coincidence that almost all the terrorists come from failed states: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, the Balkans? The only significant exception is Saudia Arabia, which aids and abets terrorists on the sly, abroad, to avoid a revolution at home. Maybe the US should reexamine the cozy relationship it has with Saudia Arabia, which remains essentially the same whether a Bush, a Clinton, or an Obama is in power.